Oral Answers to Questions

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the format of the pre-Adjournment debate held on 21 December 2010.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

May I say how much I welcome the decision of the Backbench Business Committee to retain the pre-recess Adjournment debate, which is a venerable institution, as indeed are the contributions of the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) to it, as they always provide a tour d’horizon of his constituency? We are always very pleased to know what is going on in Southend West.

[Mr Amess]

I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee and its excellent Chairman on their innovative work and I am delighted that all those who wanted to speak in that Adjournment debate were called, but does the Minister have any feel for whether the new arrangements have achieved the objectives on ministerial responses?

[Mr Heath]

I think that ministerial responses—I set aside my own efforts—were better than usual, simply because they were informed by a pre-knowledge of the topics that Members intended to raise.

Forty-five Members participated in the debate on 21 December 2010, compared with 23 in 2009 and 25 in 2008, and I believe that according to most measures that must be considered a success.